# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1859_S38
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

38 Preface to the 1859 Volume.

requires [it] for greater honor, so that the glory of the second temple may be greater than that of the first, that much still be improved. As for morals and conduct, everything is full of papist and heathen leaven. As for church usages and the modes of divine worship, who would not wish to see uniformity and unity everywhere in them? Would that, following the pattern of the Saxon churches, from which the re-purified Gospel went forth, all other churches, including our own Strasbourg churches, could be brought into conformity!" (Liber conscientiae I, p. 941.) Luther speaks still more plainly. He writes, for example, in the preface to the Smalcald Articles in the year 1537: "To come back to the matter, I would indeed truly like to see a proper Christian council, so that much might be done for many matters and people. Not that we need it; for our churches are now, by God's grace, so enlightened and equipped with the pure Word and the right use of the sacraments, with the knowledge of all estates and of right works, that on our part we ask nothing of any council, and in such matters know of nothing better to hope or expect from a council. Rather, we see everywhere in the bishoprics many parishes vacant and desolate, enough to break one's heart, etc." So Luther further writes, in the year 1541, in his treatise against Duke Henry of Brunswick: "What have you (papists) yourselves done, that you now demand a council? Now promising, now delaying, now refusing? Is your church holy — why then does it fear a council? What need has it of reforming or of a council? If it needs a council, how is it holy? Will you also reform your holiness? We for our part have never desired any council in order to reform our churches. For God the Holy Spirit has long since sanctified our church through His holy Word, indeed has swept out all popish whoredom and idolatry, so that we have everything (God be praised!) pure and holy — the Word pure, Baptism pure, the Sacrament pure, the keys pure; and everything that belongs to the true Church we have holy and pure, without any addition of human doctrine and filth. Life (as said above) does not fully follow along, as we would gladly wish and desire, and the prophets and apostles themselves also complain of this; for that belongs to the place where we shall be like the angels, Matt. 22:30. But we desire a council for this reason: that our churches be examined, and our doctrine come freely to light, so that your whoredom in the papacy may be recognized, condemned, and everyone led astray by it may be converted and, with us and along with us, gathered into the true holy Church." (XVII, 1693-1694.)

This consciousness — that our Lutheran Church, as far as doctrine is concerned, is truly the reformed Church*) — has, however, precisely among the

*) As it is expressly called in the Formula of Concord (see the Epitome, Summary Statement, fol. 256b).